The invention relates to a device for administration of a pharmaceutical according to the preamble of claim 1.
A device of this type for administration of a pharmaceutical is known for example from US 2006/0011651 A1. The device disclosed there for administration of a pharmaceutical is an inhaler with a reservoir for storage of the pharmaceutical, the reservoir having a dispensing opening. Furthermore, this device has a trigger means for triggering an administration of a pharmaceutical, the pharmaceutical being dispensed through the dispensing opening. Furthermore, this device has an information storage medium for storage of administration data, the device being provided in this case with an electronic display. In this respect, this display is of a permanent type, so that no current is required in order to keep the display unchanged. Furthermore, only a very low current is necessary in order to modify the display. In this case, the display may be a liquid crystal display or may comprise bistable nematic crystals.
Although devices of this type already operate in a very energy-efficient manner, they have to be operated with a power storage unit. Such power storage units do operate independently of an external power supply, but are primarily designed as batteries. Because of self-discharge these batteries can make replacement necessary over the possibly very long life-cycle of the device. The possibility also exists that batteries of this type can be designed to be considerably larger, but this leads to a greater weight and a greater volume of the device. Furthermore, due to the use of batteries a disposal process is also required which is not always insignificant.
It is also possible to use rechargeable accumulators. However, this is not generally accepted by users, since it involves additional actions by the user due to the charging of the accumulators and the activities associated therewith. In addition, the use of accumulators can also lead to safety-related problems, since for example because of discharging of the accumulators an electronic dosing meter no longer functions correctly and an excessively large residual amount of pharmaceutical in the reservoir is possibly displayed to the user. In this respect, the user may not be prepared to have an additional reservoir with a pharmaceutical ready if the reservoir contained in the device is already empty.